The Joy of Living: Unlocking the Secret and Science of Happiness

If you find yourself struggling with a lot of distractions, you can use every distraction as an object of meditation. Then they cease to be distractions and become supports for your meditation practice.”

When I first began to practice this sort of shinay technique, I discovered that when I tried to avoid a particular sensation, it increased. But when I learned to just look at it, whatever discomfort I felt became more tolerable. Being a curious child, of course, I had to know why this shift occurred. Only after watching the process for a while did

If you’re afraid of your thoughts, you’re giving them power over you, because they seem so solid and real, so true. And the more afraid of them you are, the more powerful they appear to be. But when you start to observe your thoughts, the power you give to them begins to fade.

in waking life, transcending the distinction between subject and object is equivalent to recognizing that whatever you experience is not separate from the mind that experiences it. Waking life doesn’t stop, but your experience or perception of it shifts from one of limitation to one of wonder and amazement.

But it takes great patience to learn how to see such possibilities. In fact, it takes great patience to see.

Being human means having power; specifically, the power to accomplish whatever we want. And what we want goes back to the basic biological urge to be happy and to avoid pain.

Compassion is essentially the recognition that everyone and everything is a reflection of everyone and everything else.

The real point of meditation is to rest in bare awareness whether anything occurs or not. Whatever comes up for you, just be open and present to it, and let it go. And if nothing occurs, or if thoughts and so on vanish before you can notice them, just rest in that natural clarity.

Any daily activity can be used as an opportunity for meditation. You can watch your thoughts as you go through your day, rest your attention momentarily on experiences like taste, smell, form, or sound, or simply rest for a few seconds on the marvelous experience of simply being aware of the experiences going on in your mind.

I’ve been as guilty of this belief as anyone else, and, as a result, have allowed myself to become isolated, trapped in a dualistic mode of thinking, pitting my weak, vulnerable, and fearful self against everyone else in the world, whom I thought of as much more powerful, happy, and secure.